1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to airborne radar and is particularly applicable to military aircraft.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Conventional airborne radars are usually mounted either in the nose of a fighter sized aircraft or within a rotordome on top of the fuselage of a large civil aircraft. Both configurations are severely affected by radar size restrictions and by obstruction of the transmitted and reflected radar beams by aircraft structure and by radomes associated with the radar.
These problems have been partially ameliorated by a configuration described in GB 2,024,522A which incorporates a loop antenna within an aerofoil. However, the radar beam is limited in size by the width of the aerofoil. U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,588 describes a disc-shaped structure incorporated within a fuselage and carrying a circular aperture phased array antenna. A disadvantage of this configuration is that the radar beam is obstructed to a certain extent by the aircraft structure. Furthermore this configuration is intended for unmanned aircraft and would be unsuitable for military aircraft.